


endangered species

by Anonymous



Series: V's Best Enemies fics [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Biting, Gallifreyan Neck Kink (Doctor Who), Other, Possessive Behavior, Post-Episode: s12e01-02 Spyfall, Relationship Negotiation, except not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:27:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23259889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Master wants a flower, the Doctor wants answers, and a conservation hive mind wants them to bone. This is a serious fic.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: V's Best Enemies fics [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1998526
Comments: 51
Kudos: 198
Collections: Anonymous





	endangered species

**Author's Note:**

> I started this in January at MonkyRebel's suggestion, and then took three months to finish. Special thanks to [the-patrex](https://the-patrex.tumblr.com), [universesvisiting](https://universesvisiting.tumblr.com), and [ladyadelinegrey](https://ladyadelinergrey.tumblr.com), for the emotional support/listening to me scream, and ESPECIALLY [resting-meme-face](https://resting-meme-face.tumblr.com) for betaing!

The Doctor tried very hard not to get into trouble alone. She also tried very hard not to get into trouble with other people. Mostly, she tried very hard not to get into trouble at all.

This didn’t count as getting into trouble. It was simply trouble flashing a neon warning sign and her running straight after it. Less akin to jumping into an active volcano and more like spotting the smoke in the air and diverting from course to see where it came from.

Whether or not she jumped into the volcano upon arrival… _That_ might have constituted as getting into trouble. But she was alone, so it didn’t.

Besides, it wasn’t a volcano, it was a conservatory, and it wasn’t smoke she was tracking—it was the Master’s TARDIS.

Alpha-Omega R-34 was the planet’s designation, an entire planet terraformed into the perfect off-world conservatory, preserving and rebuilding species that were endangered or nearly extinct on other planets. The planet hosted them according to what the ecosystem could provide and if they could be kept in the artificial facilities. The Doctor didn’t really pay much attention to conservation planets, besides helping out with an occasional sample or resurrecting one extinct plant or the other. Plants were easy and wonderful to talk to, although the TARDIS wasn’t very fond of the ones that had mouths and would nibble all over the console.

But she wasn’t here to see a beautiful planet and its denizens of androids keeping organic organisms thriving, even if the preserved flowers looked beautifully deadly; she was here to find out what the Master was up to.

The TARDIS landed in the lobby of the facility, next to a very inconspicuous door set in one of the sleek walls. The entire facility operated with sensors, and so there were no knobs to turn or push, but this particular door lacked an override panel.

The Doctor frowned and pressed a hand against the surface. A faint humming buzzed under her palm, and the tendrils of telepathic life reached out to her.

“Hello,” she said cheerfully to the Master’s TARDIS. “I see he found you again after all.”

The Master’s TARDIS hummed and retreated. The Doctor quirked a brow.

“Not a chatty one, are ya? That’s okay.” She patted the door and stepped back, eyeing her own TARDIS. “You two can sit here and gossip while I go find—”

She spun on her heel and eyed the front desk. There hovered a polished, silver, floating, rounded triangular shape; a front desk droid, approachable, friendly, and very, very cute. The Doctor hurried up to the droid, her boots clacking against the smooth, featureless floor.

“Hi. You wouldn’t have happened to see a humanoid man run around here, would you? My height-ish—well sort of, I think I’m an inch taller, it’s hard to say, we’re around the same height—and probably wearing a suit?”

A service droid should have had human fashion in their database and easily processed her request, but the bot remained hovering in the air, no sign that they’d heard anything she’d said.

“Hello?” She leaned in closer, peering at the camera lens. “Are you awake?”

No response. She pulled out the sonic and began scanning. Ah, someone had messed with their receptors and put them to sleep. She could hazard a guess as to who was behind that.

With another buzz of the sonic, the receptionist droid returned to life, processing information again. They beeped adorably, looking around and registering her face.

“Hello!” a soft, synthesised voice spoke. “Welcome to Alpha-Omega R-34. I’m afraid we are closed for visitors at this hour. Please come again tomorrow.” They ended the sentence with a lovely chirp.

“Sorry, not visiting. I’m looking for someone,” she said quickly, pocketing the sonic. “Someone just put you to sleep, and I reckon if you check the rest of the droids in the building you’ll find they’re all offline too.”

The droid chirped again at her in confusion, but the lights on their eye lenses flickered, processing information. Then, the lobby lights turned a strong, deep blue.

Ah yes: the colour for warning in this part of the galaxy.

“Emergency alert: facility systems have been taken offline, breach in sector TK-055. Rebooting system.” The droid’s friendly synthesised voice shifted to an unfriendly monotone, hovering up and down with agitation. “Systems online. Breach in sector TK-055. All available units converge on location.” 

The droid rose over the desk and charged down the hallway. The Doctor followed at a sprint.

“Wait, uh— that breach was probably the person I’m looking for. I promise I’ll make him return whatever it is he’s taken if you don’t harm him.”

The droid froze in their dash and turned back to her apprehensively.

“Are you an ally of the intruder?”

“No! The opposite, really. I followed him here because I knew he’d be up to something and I wanted to help stop him. I’d like to find out what he’s doing here as much as you do.”

The droid stared at her for a few seconds, then proceeded down the hallway again without another beep. Well, it wasn’t a refusal. 

They cut the Master off running down one of the corridors, TCE in his grip and a bunch of miniaturised droids littering the pristine floor behind him. The Master’s face visibly shifted from cool annoyance to anger once he saw the Doctor.

“This really isn’t your M.O.,” the Doctor said by way of greeting, placing herself between him and the droid. “What are you doing here?”

The Master gave a soft laugh and glared, lowering the TCE to cross his arms. He looked as she had last seen him, dressed in that purple suit and plaid trousers. She was already finding his new getup familiar. “I see you’re here to ruin my getaway.”

“Yes, very much so. Now what do you want with that container in your pocket?” She took a few steps towards him, and he shrugged at her.

“Oh, you know how this always works out; I do something suspicious and wait for you to figure it out on your own. It’s fun!” he grinned.

“Halt,” the droid said, their body flickering with signals. “Intruder must surrender the preserved specimen. Scanning.”

The Doctor stepped out of the way for the droid to read the Master. The man glared at the bot for interrupting, his fingers fidgeting with the TCE’s trigger. 

“Stolen specimen identified. Species: Aquaralis Mypheria. Conservation status: extinct in the wild. Population count: 48. Return the specimen immediately or face imprisonment under Section—”

The Master groaned and aimed the TCE, but the Doctor darted back close and seized his arm. 

“What do you want with one of those?” she asked, shoving his arm down so the weapon was aimed at the floor. “They cure heatstroke in Atrians; they’re not deadly.”

“Would you believe me if I just found it pretty?” the Master deadpanned back at her, dismissal in his eyes. He pulled his arm away.

“Intruder refuses to comply, identifying—”

The Doctor leapt aside again, running through her memory of the flower’s properties once again. It wasn’t particularly dangerous. Was the Master really going through all of this trouble just for a set piece? He was superficial sometimes. But now they had another problem on their hands.

“Intruder identified. Species: Gallifreyan. Conservation status: Extinct. Population count: 0. Database update required.”

“I do believe the term you should use is ‘extinct in the wild’,” the Master scoffed, raising his arm again.

“Master, stop it—” she grabbed his arm once more, but this time he didn’t comply. They struggled for a bit, his arm aiming away to the side, and she considered stomping on his foot to make a point. “Seriously, what do you want any old flower for?!”

In the scuffle, the Doctor realised too late that she was also within range of the droid’s scanner. 

“Scanning. Updating database. Species: Gallifreyan. Conservation status: Extinct in the wild. Population count: 2.”

She wrenched the TCE from his hand, just as a horde of droids raced down both sides of the hallway. She pocketed the weapon and raised her hands over her head. The Master rolled his eyes and huffed, planting his hands on his hips with the utmost judgement.

“Hiya!” she said to the crowd of deeply disapproving droids. She tilted her head in the Master’s direction. “The flower’s in his pockets. One of them at least. You take what belongs to you, and I’ll take him and get out of your lovely organic-preserving chassis without mentioning the status of our species. What do you say?”

The droids chirped in unison, and the lights on their bodies turned an alarming blue.

“Endangered species sighted. Initiating capture and repopulation procedure.”

The Master laughed and stared at them incredulously. “I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

The Doctor grabbed his hand, ready to make a break for it, but luck was not on her side. Beams of blue shot at them from the droids, and then there was nothing but darkness.

The Doctor tried very hard not to get captured alone. She also tried very hard not to get captured with other people. Mostly, she tried very hard not to get captured at all.

On the plus side, she wasn’t alone. On the down side, she was alone with the Master. Stuck together in a small and empty white room, as pristine and undetailed as the rest of the facility. The only distinct feature on the blank white walls was the dark spot of a camera lens in the ceiling corner. Another thing about droid hive minds was that they built themselves into the very architecture. It would be fascinating if she wasn’t currently at their mercy.

She sat up and groaned. They’d fudged up the dosage on the tranquilisers; she doubted they had much information about the effects of regeneration on the body, or most Time Lord weaknesses. Gallifrey spent a long time trying to seem invincible, after all. Not even renegades were willing to divulge the secrets and intricacies of their biology. But the Time War had made them known, and clearly some had figured out what could incapacitate them for a time. 

The Master was prone on the ground, his hands twitching ever so slightly. He was waking up too. She gritted her teeth, shuffled away to a wall, and clung to it to stand. Damn it, they’d emptied her pockets. How rude!

The sheer white of the room was making her head hurt even more. But it would be fine, she just had to explain everything to the droids, get the Master to return one of the 48 Aquaralis Mypheria in existence, and they could go back to her TARDIS where she could interrogate him about Gallifrey.

But first she needed the room to stop being so samey. It was really screwing with her depth perception.

She sat back down on the ground.

“Oi!” she snapped, digging her fingers into the floor and leaning against the wall. “I know what you lot are thinking, and I have to say it’s really rude to kidnap the person who just helped you prevent a robbery. Not nearly as rude as assuming because we’re humanoid we work the same as other humanoids, though. Or emptying my pockets.”

The Master cursed as he came to, jolting all over the floor and almost kicking her. He scrambled to his feet and then immediately collapsed. He gave another snarl and glared at her.

“What?” His eyes squinted in a grimace, and he pushed himself up to the opposite wall. They still didn’t have much space between them; their legs could probably touch if she weren’t making an effort to blend into the corner. “Why are you in here?”

There was a twitch of a hypothesis forming in the back of her brain, and it was giving her a terrible feeling. She could hazard a guess at why they were confined together. They weren’t prisoners, not in the traditional sense. 

“Greetings. Please remain calm. The database shows that you are organisms capable of sexual reproduction. It is our duty to conserve and aid in the repopulation efforts of at-risk species.”

The Master blinked up at the camera, and she could see the gears turning in his head just as her own deduction came into clarity. She glared at the camera instead, suddenly finding it easier than meeting the other Time Lord’s incredulous eyes.

“Your database is wrong!” she snapped bluntly, rising to her feet and wringing out a hand. “You can’t just stick two Gallifreyans together and expect a kid. That’s not how it works for us!”

“We understand that you are a species capable of emotional attachments and may have personal reasons not to procreate with your assigned mate. However, this is an extreme situation, and you must do so to prevent the extinction of your entire species.”

The Master choked out a laugh and banged the back of his head against the wall. The Doctor scowled, a blush rising to her cheeks. 

“‘Mate’,” the Master echoed, letting out another laugh. “You really should have stuck to plants and non-sentient organisms.”

“Yeah, that’s what they normally do,” the Doctor snarled. “We’re just the unexpected bug in their programming.” She turned her attention back to the hivemind. “Listen to me, you don’t know nearly enough about Gallifreyan biology to be doing this to us. Also, have I mentioned how creepy this is? You’re not supposed to be processing or conserving sentient intelligent beings at all. Now let us out before I break something of yours!”

“Threats of violence are unhelpful to the plight of your species’ continued existence,” the hivemind answered, aggravatingly monotone. “We are willing to offer additional resources to aid in the reproductive cycle.”

“Can I get a bed?” the Master asked cheerfully. “Something softer than this floor?”

“Master, take this seriously—” the Doctor yelped as the room shifted.

The walls expanded to give them space, and when the environment stopped trembling, the area of the floor she and the Master had been confined to was now a bed. The rest dropped out to form a floor beneath the bed frame, and several pillows had popped out of the surface. Everything was still incredibly, pristinely white, but it did feel comfier and a bit less claustrophobic. 

Adaptive architecture. If she had her sonic she could probably trick the structure into letting them out, but without it she’d had to find some other option.

The Doctor shuffled off the bed immediately and stood to her feet. The camera had disappeared, but she knew the droids were still surveying them.

“He wasn’t being serious,” she said, frowning and wrapping her coat around herself. Being surveyed by an invisible entity was unsettling enough as it was without the clear statement of their goals.

“I was, actually,” the Master said, but he was smiling and she knew never to trust him when he was making any sort of facial expression.

“Yes, well, the floor was rather uncomfortable,” she admitted, glaring up at the expanse of white. “Please, listen to me. Gallifreyans are sterile. We don’t reproduce the way you think we do. Rassilon or whoever just kept the sexual organs for fun—”

“Dear stars, don’t make me think about Rassilon having sex,” muttered the Master.

“—they don’t actually _do_ anything! We’re all born artificially, and whatever technology that _can_ do that is lost on Gallifrey. There’s nothing we can do. So, _let us out of here already!”_

If the walls had been as close as they were before, she might have punched one of them.

The room didn’t answer her. She huffed and began to pace. Hopefully they were just processing what she was telling them. The Master remained perched on the edge of the too-white bed, looking far too pleased about the situation.

“This is your fault,” she said, and even as the words left her she felt like a kid again, getting into trouble with Koschei and passing blame onto him because Theta was an absolutely _darling_ and it wasn’t her fault, damn it. This time, at least. “Why did you want that flower so badly?”

The Master stood up from the bed and sauntered towards her. Shit, he was just _slightly_ taller than her, not the other way around. It was the first time in a long time that she was the shorter one of them both. She was still getting used to it again.

“Well, I would have gotten away with it if you hadn’t followed me,” he said sourly, stepping aside so he could circle her ever-so-dramatically. She spun on the spot to keep him in sight.

“Master,” she snapped, but he stepped back and his scowl morphed into a ridiculous grin.

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

He tilted his head at her, something dark in his eyes. Something dangerous. Something longing—wait.

“Can you _please_ be serious right now?” she demanded, heat rushing to her face once more as she put some distance between them and glared at the walls. “We should be figuring out how to escape, not bending to their misinformed wills.”

She knew from the audible intake of breath that she’d said the wrong thing and whirled around.

“No! Shut up! If you crack a dirty joke now, I swear—” She flailed her hands and made an exasperated noise in his general direction. “I am _not_ having sex with you while I’m trying to convince a bunch of androids that they’re being incredibly immoral and disrespectful about their misconceptions of our species’ procreation method.” She crossed her arms and gave her most disapproving look. 

The Master’s mouth closed, but he gave her that oh-so-familiar smirk and raised his eyebrows in obvious mockery. He really just liked seeing the Doctor squirm. The Master was simply incorrigible.

She opened her mouth to continue talking, just so he wouldn’t, when an idea struck her over the head, and she burst into a smile. 

The Doctor looked back out to the upsettingly blank walls.

“Hello! Conservation hivemind? I have a request to make that will definitely aid in,” she waved vaguely between her and the Master, “whatever the hell this is.”

“Whatever you need can be procured.”

“This is a very, very specific item,” she said, with utmost gravity. “It’s part of a Gallifreyan legend, and it may circumvent our biological incompatibility with reproduction.”

“Whatever you need can be procured,” repeated the droid.

“Great! I need one chair made out of silictone and a rope. The rope can be made of anything, but the chair _has_ to be silictone.”

The Master made to speak, and she rushed to clap her hand over his mouth. He made a startled sound behind her palm, but she shoved him backwards until he fell onto the bed. 

Humans might have looked at them and presumed he was stronger than her, but there was only a minimal variance in physical strength for Gallifreyans; the Doctor could still keep him down. 

The other Time Lord struggled half-heartedly beneath her hold, more out of indignance than actual concern for his well-being.

“That clear?” she asked sweetly, looking up at the expanse of the room. Her words echoed, the silence only broken by the Master’s muffled and annoyed breathing that tickled her palm, then the room responded: 

“It will be procured.”

The Doctor beamed at nothing and then stared down at the Master with a frozen smile. Keep quiet, it said, or else. The Master rolled his eyes, and she released him, scrambling off just as quickly as she’d pinned him down in the first place. This body didn’t like touching, but neither had her previous. The Master was frequently the exception to her preferences, but now was _not_ the time to consider that implication.

“Was that revenge for attacking you in Paris?” he asked casually, propping himself up on his elbows rather than sitting up straight. He gave her a heated, inviting look, an expression which, coupled with his slightly mussed hair and disturbed suit jacket, anyone else would find attractive. 

Unfortunately for him, the Doctor wasn’t watching his attempt at seduction. She wasn’t even listening to him. And, if she had, she was far more likely to smother him with a pillow than reciprocate his advances. 

The Time Lord stepped away towards a wall, ran a finger down it, licked the tip of her finger, then made a face.

“Yeah, I’m sure this’ll work.” She turned and walked further into the room towards another wall. “Definitely going to have to file a complaint with the board though. I can’t believe they never planned for intelligent, autonomous, independent lifeforms. I mean consent _is_ more important than preserving a species, right?” She placed an ear against the wall and knocked on the surface.

“Well, if I’d gotten stuck in here with anyone besides you, I–”

“That was a rhetorical question. Shush, I’m thinking.”

The Doctor pulled away from the wall and returned to the part she’d licked, pressing her ear to the surface again. She knocked on the blank white a few times. Hearing exactly what she wanted, she lifted her ear off and turned around before abruptly slamming the back of her head into the wall. 

The Master had gotten up and snuck up from behind, and now his deep brown eyes were peering straight into her, like a human trying to read someone’s facial expressions. If she leaned forward their noses could touch.

This body didn’t like touching, she was very sure of it, but as stated, the Master always managed to be an exception. He wanted something, and from that familiar hungry look, it seemed that the hivemind had given him the perfect excuse to segue into it, although there was no way in hell she was going to give it to him. She knew exactly how it would go down, and she wanted none of it.

She opened her mouth to ask him again about the flower, when a now familiar monotonous voice spoke from the walls. The Doctor flinched at the synthetic voice that seemed to speak right into her ear.

“It is proving difficult to procure a chair fabricated from silictone.”

She shoved the Master aside so hard he stumbled slightly, and stormed into the empty space away from him, shouting up at the room. 

“And I _said_ I wouldn’t accept substitutions. Find it!”

The voice didn’t answer, but silence fell from the walls. The Doctor groaned and rested her hands on her hips. She just needed the silictone chair and then they could escape. Or _she_ could escape, at least. The Master had escaping down as an art form at this point. and if he kept bothering her, she would gladly leave him to find a way out himself. Or not. He’d probably kill a few more robots and that would be her fault, wouldn’t it? She was overthinking again. 

The Master turned from the wall. He was still staring at her, although the hungry look had started fading to curiosity. He crossed his arms, brows furrowed at her. The Doctor focused on her mental shields, in case he decided to try and cheat.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said, pointedly.

She considered feigning innocence and confusion, pretending as though she had no idea what he was talking about. She’d done that before, with her humans and others, on the topic of both romantic and sexual affection. But she couldn’t hide behind being too _alien_ for him to comprehend here, not with the Master, who single handedly consisted of her entire reciprocated history.

Sex had hardly been a taboo subject on Gallifrey, but it had been niche and considered far too silly and disgusting of an experience for any self-respecting Gallifreyan to partake. Theta and Koschei had only been curious and possibly hormonal, but as renegades, the Master enjoyed it for the opportunity to lord over the Doctor and for the experience itself. Not even Missy had allowed the sudden learning curve of new reproductive biology to stop her from turning her stoic Doctor into an incoherent mess.

“Why did you want that flower?” she retorted, pushing her coat back to shove her hands into her trouser pockets. 

“I asked my question first, Doctor.” The Master started towards her, closing the space between them with every step.

“Technically, I asked you first when you were making your escape attempt,” she answered calmly. 

He was a foot fall away from breaching her personal space, so she took the liberty of stealing that step from him. The Master stopped abruptly before he could crash into her, and she peered into his eyes, trying to pick out his thoughts from not his mind but his face. 

“What are you doing here, Master? What do you want with a rare flower?”

“If you answer me first, I might tell you.” The Master’s breath tickled her nose. 

He was an inch taller than her after all, but at least she didn’t have to lift her head to see him. She’d hated doing that.

“Well either you can tell _me_ first, or the moment they get me that silictone chair and rope, I’m tying you to the bedframe and leaving you here.”

The Master gave a dramatic sigh and look of disappointment. “And here I’d thought you’d try to take initiative for once.”

Her nose wrinkled, and he laughed. Yes, that was the Master, always reading a power play into innocuous things. 

“I’m not having sex with you,” she stated flatly. “Especially not here.”

“Ah,” his eyes gleamed and he leaned in. There was that look in his eye once again. It was a very familiar look. Call it hunger, jealousy, possessiveness—probably all three. The Master never was satisfied concerning the Doctor. “But later?”

“Nope,” she deadpanned, unimpressed. He was trying to get under her skin. Being sexually suggestive was easy pickings for him, but so long as she didn’t give him any more openings to be dreadfully overt...

“Okay,” the Master leaned back slightly. “Why not?”

“Why yes?” she asked simply.

“Well, we’re both Time Lords, we’ve had sex together just last incarnation, and many incarnations before that. I’d say at this point we really are—what’s that human term? ‘Friends with benefits’?”

“Enemies,” she corrected, her voice even and her expression resolutely disinterested. “And I don’t _need_ to have sex with anyone. And neither do you. With me, that is.”

“With you?” 

It was too late to take the words back. The Master had latched onto the end of the statement. She saw the synapses firing, and when it clicked for him, he appeared genuinely puzzled. 

“Would you prefer I have sex with other people besides you?”

“I don’t know,” her voice cracked out of embarrassment. Damn it. She cleared her throat and tried to maintain eye contact, even as a blush crept up to her ears. She could fix this. She just had to remain calm. “It’s your body. So long as you’re not forcing anyone—”

“Oh, Doctor, that is depraved, even for me.” The Master laid his hand flat against his chest, as though offended. “Just because you’re happy with humans doesn’t mean the rest of us should engage in xenophilia.”

“That isn’t—!” the Doctor’s jaw dropped. He was baiting her, and she knew it. Her jaw clicked back shut, and she tried to school her expression out of an indignant frown. “I just meant that if you wanted to sleep with someone it doesn’t have to be me.”

“‘Sleep with’,” the Master raised an eyebrow at the human phrase, then shook his head with an oddly bitter laugh. “Do you really think so little of me?”

“What?” the Doctor stared. His eyes were flashing; she’d missed something. What hadn’t she noticed? What was the Master holding over her head? “What do you mean?”

He stepped back, out of her space, turned his back to her, and gave another laugh that echoed through the room and sent a chill seeping down her shoulders. Her mind was racing, trying to figure out from that one question what she’d insinuated—or what he _thought_ she’d insinuated. 

And in that rush of panic, a different answer to another query surfaced, hitting her like a punch to the gut.

She had seen an Aquaralis Mypheria before. A very, very long time ago.

Her hearts clenched, and she stared at the back of the Master’s head. The floor swayed beneath her feet. 

“Aquaralis Mypheria,” her voice was low. “From when we were kids.” She sucked in a slow breath as the memories returned, ancient and fragmented and piecing back together imperfectly. “One of the profs had a Vortex Manipulator in storage. We stole it and went off-world. We landed on another planet, having a vernal festival. And—”

There had been fields of those flowers, brilliantly blue seas of rounded petals that contrasted the straight red grasses of home. Their beauty had captivated them both, and Koschei had braided them into Theta’s hair. 

Then the Time War began and wiped the planet from history.

The Doctor’s shoulders sunk into herself, and she stared down at the ground.

Forgetting wasn’t losing a memory, just never remembering it enough to bring it back the next time. And she hadn’t wanted to remember losing one of their childhood moments to the war. But she’d still forgotten, and the Master knew that.

There had been no nefarious plan, only the Master being oddly sentimental. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I know,” he said, because he would never forgive her for anything.

They never really changed, the two of them.

“Now, Doctor,” and the Master swung right back to smiles and madness and that _look_ in his eyes, but the solemn air lingered around them despite his efforts. He spun around to march towards her. “I believe you have to answer my question now. Why won’t you—”

“Because you’ll treat it like it’s a game.”

Her pre-emptive confession halted him in his tracks. She took the opportunity to walk towards the bed, putting more distance between them and giving her something to do besides standing in place like an idiot. 

“What?” It wasn’t often she managed to stump him, but this wasn’t really the time to savour it either.

The Doctor ran her hands through her hair, not out of frustration, but so her hands could touch and distract. If she were in the TARDIS, she’d have started fiddling with the console controls, but all she had was a bed. She sat down on the side facing away from the Master. There was a heat rising to her cheeks again. Stars, how old was she, blushing over such a thing as hurt feelings?

“Doctor.” There it was, that tone of voice again, the tone he’d been using for most of their conversation, so demanding and controlling and _cold—_

She forced herself to drop her hands and grip the fabric of her coat in her fists instead. She didn’t think this body enjoyed opening up to people anymore, but that was a lie, one they always told themselves if they could possibly link a new development to regeneration. It wasn’t this body, it was _the Doctor_. 

“With every other time we’ve had sex,” she began, every word leaving her throat barbed and stinging, “it’s like a game between us. And I didn’t mind it, then. We both knew what we were doing, and it was just another way of riling each other up. Like how you’d steal parts of my TARDIS or I’d mess with your plans and trick you back. Then the war happened, and you really got into having me appear lesser than you, and I just do not want my first experience with this configuration to be nothing more than an ego boost for you because you know so much more than I do—”

Her knuckles had gone taut white, and she could feel the tips of her fingernails digging into her thighs through the fabric of her coat and trousers. The Master had stepped around the bed to face her, his shoes stopping by the tips of her boots. She didn’t dare lift her head to see what his expression was. 

Then, he knelt at her feet, into her line of sight, and she saw him expectant, calm, and attentive. He folded his arms over her lap, and leaned to rest his chin up on her legs, and said, “Basically, we should pretend like it’s your first time.”

She blinked. Once. Twice. When had been the last time she’d ever seen him this way, knelt before her instead of vice versa? It had been so long ago. He stared up at her, his face perfectly neutral, and she remembered to answer.

“Yes. I mean no. I mean. I know how everything works, it’s not a first time at all. But I’ve never been on this end of things. With this biological setup.”

“But you would appreciate it if I had the same mannerisms as I did when we had our chronological first time.” The Master raised his eyebrows. “You want me to be nice to you, more or less. Is that it?”

Oh that really was _ages_ ago for both of them. They’d both been so terribly worried they’d get it wrong somehow that they’d hassled Ushas, who’d been the only one who wouldn’t tell anyone else about it or tease them for trying it out. She’d only rolled her eyes and tossed them reference materials and made them swear to never talk to her about that topic outside of an academic sense, to which Koschei had insisted it _was_ purely academic and got a book to the head in response.

The end result had Koschei being _very_ sweet to Theta, fretting and worried and so very kind. 

“Yeah,” she said, and the blush was burning away at full force. “And I know it sounds ridiculous to you because it’s only sex—”

“You don’t know,” the Master interrupted coarsely. “I think you’ve spent too much time with humans.”

“You always think that.”

“Yes, but now especially.” The Master dropped his hands and pressed his face into her knees, sighed, then raised his head again, staring up at her. “Do you think I’m just having sex for the sake of it, without any sort of real attachment? Do you think I could have sex with just anyone? Do you really think I’d want to?”

The Doctor dug her hands into the side of the bed. “That’s not a human problem. Sex is an optional experience for us. I’m sure there were plenty of Gallifreyans who had sex without an emotional connection.”

“Answer the question, Doctor. Please.”

 _Please._ She stared into big sad eyes. He wasn’t belittling her; he was genuine. He needed to know. It was important to him that he knew. Her grip tightened on the bed sheets. 

“I… I thought you were like that with everyone. Even in the Vault you were always so…” she couldn’t express the words. “And you and Lucy, I mean you were always kissing her and putting her in those dresses, and I just thought—”

“You’ve kissed more humans in a single regeneration than I have in my entire life,” the Master replied, and she could hear his effort to keep the disdain from his rebuttal. He lifted his head off his arms to tilt his head at her in gentle admonishment. “I hope you’re not going to say you actually did ‘sleep’ with them.”

“No! Of course I didn’t, but—” her mouth clicked shut. “It feels like it’s always about power, with you. Not that you don’t feel anything with me, or that I don’t feel anything with you, but the way you look at me, and the way you act towards me. You just like seeing me off-kilter and embarrassed, don’t you?”

“Obviously.” The Master’s ‘nice’ veneer cracked a little, then he cleared his throat and tried again, “But I also like it because you’re not holding yourself back. And I like being the one to make you feel that way.”

“And because you have control issues and always need to be the one giving orders,” the Doctor added.

“You do make it easy,” the Master said. “And you’re lovely when you don’t know what to expect.”

“You’re not as unpredictable as you think you are,” she replied, but for once the smile on her face felt genuine, not mocking or a defense mechanism. 

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

Her smile faltered, but she gave a dismissive chuckle and regarded him.

“What do you think?”

“This new body is very attractive,” the Master stated.

“I can’t control what other people think,” the Doctor said indignantly. “No, I don’t want my friends to be my sexual partners, and I most certainly don’t want strangers as my sexual partners. I love my friends quite a bit, but I don’t love them in that way.”

She expected the Master to make some cutting remark, like how she also couldn’t love them in that way because they were human and would die in the blink of an eye, but instead something flickered over his eyes, and he rose to his feet, standing over and her and looking down.

“Have you ever ‘slept’ with anyone else besides me?”

The Doctor stared.

“Would you be upset with me if I had?”

She met his gaze calmly. In her periphery, however, she could just make out his fists clenching and unclenching. Most would say the Master would be unpredictable in his anger, but she’d known him long enough now to know that his anger was the most predictable aspect of him.

“No,” he answered at last, and he sank back down to his knees and laid his head in her lap once again. “I wouldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“I’m in your history,” the Master answered, lifting a hand to draw meaningless circles into her leg. “I was there for it all. Anything you know about your bodies, I discovered it first with you. It doesn’t matter if there were others, because I’m still the one who’s had you first and the most and,” a small smile joined the look in his eyes, “I doubt anyone else has seen into your mind the way I have.”

It really shouldn’t have sounded the way it did to her, but it was the way the Master would justify himself, and even though she knew of some very compelling counterpoints, the Doctor had no need for them. The Master had always been like that, possessive and grabby and ‘mine, mine, mine’, and the Doctor had never been afraid of that.

It’d been the opposite, really.

“No,” she breathed out slowly and closed her eyes. “No, I haven’t. I don’t feel the need to and I don’t think I’d ever feel comfortable enough to do so with anyone else.” 

“Thank you.” His eyes grew watery, and the Doctor never really understood why the Master always pushed so hard for their validation, for someone who gladly lorded over all the Doctor’s friends that they were but mayflies in a Time Lord’s lifespan and was so forward that they were the Doctor’s only equal. But it was clearly very important to him, and she would be happy to remind him so if he weren’t so prone to pushing her to say it. 

“It wouldn’t be a reflection of you even if I had,” the Doctor said.

“No,” the Master agreed, “But it is… what did you call it. An ego boost?”

She grabbed a pillow and hit him in the face with it. Before he could retaliate, there was a clang of metal and a thump of something else behind her. The Doctor nearly kicked him, scrambling off the bed towards what’d just appeared in the room.

“The silictone chair and rope have been acquired.”

“Yes, right, thank you,” she called out. It was the first time in thirty minutes that she’d found that monotone voice _reassuring_. “Now please leave us alone or we’ll get performance anxiety.”

“Oh, that’s one of your problems, not mine,” the Master recovered quickly to his feet, tossing the discarded pillow back onto the bed. “You’re always terribly shy about these things.”

“No, that’s just ordinary in the presence of your ego,” she retorted, picking up the rope and coiling it around a wrist. Here they were, back to snark and banter. It was almost a comfort.

She dumped the rope into her coat pocket and snatched up the silictone chair by the back. It wasn’t any heavier than your average Earth chair, but it was the silictone property that really mattered. Plus, the Master had tied her to a chair a few times, and it would have been nice to get revenge on him if he really did annoy her before she could execute her escape plan. 

But mostly, chairs were just easier to smash against walls.

“See! Facility walls!” she said, beaming through the freshly battered hole that led into a familiar-looking hallway. “Wasn’t sure what they were made of, but silictone is one of the strongest—”

The Master grabbed her hand and tugged her out of the broken wall. His hand dwarfed hers, strong and firm. She’d have to get used to that too. 

“I’m not one of your humans. You don’t need to explain your logic to me!”

“Oi! So you get to monologue, and I don’t?”

“ _Not_ during an escape!”

Their feet hit the hallway floor, and the lights went blue again. What a lovely blue. The same blue as the TARDIS and the Aquaralis Mypheria. Blue had always been her favourite colour, right? If not, it was now. 

Their hands remained interlinked until they reached their TARDISes. It’d been so long since they ran together. She missed it. 

The Doctor pushed him up against the fake door his TARDIS was pretending to be and gripped his hand tightly between their chests. They still had a moment, just a little, before the droids caught up with them. Being almost the same height wasn’t all bad; she could touch their foreheads together with minimal effort and stare right into his eyes. 

“If you run from me again, I’m never going to let go the next time.”

“Is that a promise?” The Master stared. 

“Just…” she sucked in a breath. Just because she could never really refrain from touching the Master, didn’t mean she had any idea how to express physical affection in this new body. Hug? No, too close. Kiss? Eh… On the forehead? Or the cheek? Or—

Their foreheads parted as the Doctor pulled back to bring the Master’s hand up and press her lips against the back of his palm. 

“Meet me in the vortex,” she said, lowering his hand and meeting his wonderstruck eyes. “If you want to.”

She let go first and rushed off for the blue doors before he could answer, feeling like a teenager saying goodbye at the end of a prom date. 

The TARDIS greeted her with complaints about how _boring_ the Master’s TARDIS was, thank the universe the Doctor was back, and were they going to fly far away from him now because she could not _stand—_

“Maybe,” the Doctor said, patting the console reassuringly as she flung them off of the planet and into the time vortex. “Maybe not.”

The TARDIS beeped indignantly, and she laughed, just a little bit.

It’d been either an hour or five minutes later when there was a knock at the door. She didn’t know, only that she’d made a quick stop back to the conservatory to steal their things back. The Doctor had been tempted to ‘lose’ the TCE somewhere, but the Master would just build another and she really didn’t want him to make any more ‘upgrades’ to his repository of deadly murder weapons.

It was strange, stepping out to see the vortex, and it always gave her a bit of a headache. It wasn’t really a vortex, after all, and they weren’t really ‘in’ anything, but there the Master was, his TARDIS gliding alongside hers, and she could already hear her TARDIS beginning to complain.

“She doesn’t like yours,” she said by way of greeting. “She finds her boring.”

“Your TARDIS is always an oddity—in the best of ways,” he added, to the TARDIS’ grumbling.

The Doctor had a bedroom, even if she never used it for anything that required sleep. Gallifrey had very long days, and adult Time Lords were capable of functioning on minimal hours of rest, especially compared to humans. But, the TARDIS had set up a room for them, many bodies ago, and though the Doctor kept deleting them, a new one would pop up soon after. It was always the same, simple and tidy with not much in the way of personal furnishings, but it served its purpose if they ever came down with an illness or were knocked unconscious.

Or… in the very, very rare occasion that the Doctor were to have sex with someone and wasn’t going to just rush it elsewhere.

As they left the console room in search of the bedroom, the TARDIS left them with a very grumpy telepathic threat to scramble the hallways if they left her with the Master’s TARDIS for too long, as well as something about the Doctor and the Master and… a bone? 

Sometimes, not even the Doctor understood what her old girl was saying.

“As much as I hate to say it, we could just book a hotel room on some planet,” the Master suggested, as the Doctor set upon finding a proper empty bedroom. “Unless you’re used to hearing your ship make commentary.”

“Is that what humans do?” she asked, swinging a door open. It led to a billiard room. 

“So I’ve heard.” The Master’s nose crinkled. “Mostly for affairs, though.”

“Is this an affair?” The Doctor shut the door and headed back down the hall, seeking out the right one. 

“It’s not.”

The TARDIS was merciful enough to point out the proper room to her, a few doors down. Yes, that was it. She stopped and tugged at the Master’s arm. He turned. 

“What is it?”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cylindrical container. It was transparent, and through it one could see a soft, blue petaled flower planted in dirt. 

“I stole one for myself, too,” she said, offering it to him. “I consider it compensation for what they put us through. And I reckon I’m better at preserving stuff than they are.”

“You’ll forget to water it within the month,” he said, but he took it with shaking hands and stared down at it. “Thank you.”

“What was that?”

“Doctor,” he looked up and scowled at her. She smiled in return. His scowl faded. 

“You were sentimental,” she said softly. Not teasing, just stating a fact. 

“Shut up.”

“It’s okay to be,” she said. “And I’m… flattered that you are.”

“Not everything I do is about you,” he said defensively. “Maybe I just missed a peaceful moment of my childhood.”

“Maybe,” she said, moving past him to open the door to the bedroom and step into it. 

Yep, it _was_ her bedroom. Or at least one of the guest bedrooms. Nothing personal in it, everything all neat and tidy. It was probably the right room. The Master shut the door behind them.

“Okay,” the Doctor began, bouncing on the balls of her feet, as the Master passed her to place the flower on an empty shelf. “Where do we start?”

She was still in a state where she wasn’t quite yet invested in initiating a sexual interaction and just found it strange and bizarre. It was probably the new body. She’d probably be doing better if it were her eleventh. He had been all too eager to start hugging and kissing people for a being who didn’t actually feel sexual attraction. What a pity the Master never met them during that time. 

“Traditionally, by removing your clothes,” the Master said, circling around her to reach for her coat.

She batted his hands away. “I can do that myself. And don’t you mean _our_ clothes?”

“No,” he answered curtly, even though he mimicked her in removing his suit jacket. “And I must say, I miss when you’d wear a proper shirt.”

She scowled, tossing her coat aside and slipping the suspenders from her shoulders. The Master was unbuttoning his waistcoat and staring pointedly at her exposed neck before toeing off his boots.

“Buttons take too long,” she said, peeling off the first layer of her shirt. “I was in a pinch for clothes and the buttons on the shirts looked weird, so I just–” the shirt came off over her head, “–grabbed whatever I felt comfortable with and is that _really_ all you’re taking off right now?”

Halfway through her sentence, the Master had taken off his boots and stood there, hands in his pockets, listening to her talk. He made no further motion to discard his shirt or belt or trousers or socks and simply smiled at her exclamation.

“You first,” he said, quirking an eyebrow.

“You’re insufferable,” she said, her fingers lingering on the hem of her undershirt.

The Master’s other eyebrow lifted in surprise, and he took a step closer. She didn’t step back.

“Nervous?” he asked. He sounded somewhat surprised.

“No,” she answered, tightening her grip on the edges of the fabric. They’d never been _shy_ about nudity, yet, “This body just isn’t one for physical proximity, and it’s just a little unnerved by you standing there watching me.”

“Would it help if I kissed you?” he offered.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “I’ve never kissed anyone in this body before.”

And there it was again, that look in his eyes. He wanted to be the first for this body, the same way he’d been for some other ones. It was always about being the first in the Doctor’s lives, even if that rarely meant he would _stay_.

“May I?” his hand touched the side of her face, and the Doctor didn’t dare to breathe. 

She nodded.

The Master’s lips were slightly chapped, but the lack of lipstick wasn’t the only change to when they’d last kissed. It had been a long time since she’d felt his beard tickle and prick at her chin like his older incarnations. She kissed the way she remembered to (she’d really dropped off on kissing people besides the Master after the eleventh and she felt no inclination to return to it; she might have been out of practice), her hands leaving her shirt to settle in his hair. The Master pushed himself closer, his other hand coming up to hold the back of her head.

They broke the kiss, not because they needed the air but because she still hadn’t taken off her shirt. She was just starting to ‘get’ the idea of what they were going for, so she seized the hem of the fabric and pulled it over her head.

(She would decline to mention she’d once instinctively tried to pull it off the way her ninth incarnation had been wont to, by grabbing the back collar of her shirt and tugging it over her head. She had gotten herself stuck for a very disorienting few minutes, and Yaz would later find her comparing one of her shirts with an older one, trying to understand why it didn’t slip off the same way. Yaz wound up dragging in Ryan to help explain that human shirts were styled differently based on gender. The Doctor told them that was ridiculous.)

For a moment, taking off her shirt reminded her that she had to take off her earring, too. The Master was always putting his mouth on places it really didn’t belong, and the last thing she wanted was for him to bite down on metal. 

Maybe.

“That earring is ridiculous, by the way,” the Master said flatly, and she scowled at him, taking out the cuff and setting it down on the bedside table. She’d barely straightened up again when the Master hugged her from behind with one arm and placed a kiss on the back of her neck. The Doctor let out an undignified squeak and dug her fingers into the Master’s hand. 

“Can you—” the next word skipped in her head, as the tips of the Master’s fingers dragged across her skin to part her hair, and he set upon bruising the nape of her neck. The fabric of his shirt pressed against her bare back, and his arm tickled her stomach. “Can you take your clothes off first?”

“No,” the Master murmured. She shuddered at his breath on her dampened skin. “Later.”

“Unfair!”

“Yeah, isn’t that nostalgic?”

The Doctor laughed through a groan. They’d been in this position before, during their actual first time and a few times after that. Theta had complained about it then, too, and Koschei had been just as smug. The Master had always been such a nuisance. 

She leaned backwards, overbalancing the two of them onto the bed with the Master beneath her back, and she turned around so he was caged between her and the mattress. He scowled at her, and the Doctor grinned. 

“No power plays, Master,” she reminded. 

“Technically, you only told me to be nice.”

“Mmm, and that means no power plays,” she said, reaching over to unbutton his shirt. 

The Master grabbed her wrists and flipped the two of them over so that he was on top of her, threading his fingers through hers and pinning them to the bed. It was the Doctor’s turn to scowl. 

“Master!” She’d only managed to get the first button undone. 

“Not a power play, darling.” He freed a hand to trail his fingers down her neck to the dip of her collarbones and watch her chest rise sharply at his touch. “Just convenient. Besides, I can be nice _and_ in control.”

“Somehow, I’m not inclined to believe you,” the Doctor replied, focusing on keeping her voice level. The hairs of her arms were standing on end, and she could feel the hard double thrumming of her hearts. This body had never been in such proximity to another, especially not in these circumstances. It was still a bit of a shock. 

The Master didn’t answer, leaning back to disentangle their legs so he was knelt between hers, and set upon removing her briefs. 

“Nostalgia or no, are you really going to keep all those clothes on?” she asked, trying not to frown again as he manhandled her legs into the air to slip off the underwear. 

“You’re acting like we’ve never done things like this,” he said, resting her legs at his sides, and reaching over for her sports bra. 

“Hands off. I can undress myself,” she said, sitting up and looping her fingers under the hem and pulling it over her head before tossing it over his head at the pile of clothes. “And we have, which is the problem.”

“I’m not mocking you, Doctor,” the Master said, leaning back in as she picked up some pillows and cushioned them beneath her. “I just like to focus my attention on you.”

His hand landed on her collarbone again, tracing the grooves of her neck, before his gaze fell to her torso. This new body was proper pretty, all slender and young where her previous body had been sharp and weathered. The Master’s fingers drifted to where the flat of her rib cage curved up to her left breast. The Doctor craned her head to see the soft nipple harden into a nub and felt a shiver run through her skin. 

“Still getting used to them,” she said conversationally. “How did you deal with corsets and all that? It’s a pain.”

“I don’t run,” the Master answered, ghosting his hand over the other breast to observe the same reaction. “Do you miss your previous body?”

“Do you?” the Doctor asked, watching as the Master felt around her body. It was different. 

“I’ve had bodies with female sexual characteristics before,” he said, “I just didn’t tend to keep them long enough to see you. Besides, I think it’s safe to say I have the upper hand on you regardless of—”

“You promised not to mock me, Master.”

“Right.” He leaned forwards and seized one of her hands, his other hand brushing her hair from her face. He balanced himself on his elbow, and she was suddenly reminded of how naked she was compared to him, feeling the material of his shirt and trousers against her uncovered skin. “I’m not mocking you.”

His eyes were warm and soft, and she could tolerate this inequity if he kept looking that comforting. 

“Good,” she said, lifting her freed hand to run her fingers through his hair. It had a somewhat fluffy look to it. She liked it. “And I don’t miss it.”

Not any more than she missed being taller or having brown hair or another accent. It was never relevant what she wound up with. She was a Time Lord—appearance was irrelevant. Even if, as a renegade, she had a lot more superficial bigotry to deal with. 

The Master hummed and nodded, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. He was still smiling, but it was a gentle one that set a warmth blooming in the Doctor’s chest. It wasn’t one of embarrassment this time, only fondness. 

Then, the Master’s fingers brushed against her lips, and the index prodded between them. It took a few seconds, but the fond warmth returned to annoyed embarrassment. 

“Just in case?” the Master asked innocently. 

The Doctor stared at him, sighed, and dropped her hand from his hair to seize the offered one by the wrist and take the digits into her mouth, dutifully covering them in saliva. 

“I missed you doing this!” he said, and a blush rose to her cheeks at his clear delight. What a way to ruin the mood. “Shuts you up, too.”

She let out a huff through her nose and resisted the urge to detach one of his fingers with her teeth. If he decided to shut her up the _other_ way, she was well versed enough in sucking the Master off to potentially render him incoherent as well. She’d spent enough lives to have that skill engrained in her memory. 

The Master’s smile had changed, and he had that look on his face again, hungry and possessive and endeared. She could understand the Master enjoying seeing her physically or intellectually beneath him, it was just a power trip, but she doubted she’d ever personally understand the connection to sexuality. Even though they’d talked about it a little, it still felt like he just wanted to embarrass her—

She gave a yelp of surprise as the Master tugged his fingers from her mouth without warning, and pressed his lips to hers, careless of the wetness between their mouths. His tongue pushed against her own, and she took a second to recover and push back. She was getting used to the prickle of his stubble. It was just as annoying as the rest of him. 

_It’s not about embarrassing you, love. Even if you’ve always been very pretty when you blush._

_Stay out of my head!_

_What’s the point of telepathy otherwise? I told you I just like seeing you lose control of the situation._

_That’s your power tripping ego talking—_ “Mfft!”

He’d distracted her, damn it, but there was something very different about the way his dampened fingers traced over the slick opening between her legs. She tried to keep her breath even, but the tips of his fingers prodded at something that sent such a sensation to her brain, she broke the kiss to muffle a cry. The Master’s fingers froze, lightly pressed against the folds, but gratefully not touching her clit. 

“A lot more nerve endings now,” he said, his voice oddly soft. He bent his arm over to caress her hair. “That is the fun of it.”

“Remind me again how you learnt enough about this to ruin my days if I’m the only one you’ve ever slept with?” she asked, inclining her hips slightly to test the feeling. It wasn’t painful, but the jolt at the contact with the bundle of nerves was surprising enough to make her flinch. 

“I had a lot of free time, waiting for you to catch up,” the Master said, his gaze intently on her as his index finger circled around the sensitive bud. “Did you not bother to explore the new configuration?”

“No?” she pressed the back of her head into the pillow. “It’s always weird doing it by myself. It’s just physical sensation if I’m alone.”

“And that’s why I have to know more than you,” the Master grinned. “Besides, I couldn’t have you finding someone who’ll fuck you better than me.”

“You—” her voice caught in her throat, as she finally understood what his behaviour had meant, what the question that’d lead to all of this had meant. It hadn’t been solely to embarrass her and make her lose control. “You were afraid of—!”

She pressed her lips together and dug her fingers into the bedsheets, squeezing her eyes shut. Stars, had she been this sensitive their first time? It felt different. Everything felt different.

The Master kissed her softly, and though that felt different as well, the way he caught her lip between his teeth and worried it until it began to swell was still the same. The way he pet her hair, sinking his fingers into the strands, just enough that she could feel he was holding her in place, but not enough to make it hurt, was still the same. And the way he moved his finger within her, curling it just enough that her breath stuttered while he still remembered to tease the part of her that would make her flinch with stimulation was still the same. How she was both embarrassed by how easily he could make her struggle to keep her mental shields intact and desperate for him to break her concentration enough to shatter them—it was all the same as before. 

“You could just open yourself up to me,” he whispered, pressing their foreheads together. 

At some point she’d slung her arms around his shoulders, and pressed her fingers into his back. He was still _dressed,_ and it was keeping her from digging her nails into his skin. 

“You’re scared,” she whispered instead, determined to keep her mind shut from him. Or as shut as she could, given his skill. “You’re–scared I’ll find someone else to touch me like this—ah!”

The Master sunk his teeth into her shoulder, and she forgot to breathe for a few seconds. It hurt, but it was one of the kinks that would stay throughout regenerations. The pain stung, even as the Master moved further up her neck to mark up another patch of unblemished skin, but a warmth pooled around the Master’s finger and she still liked it. 

“Of course,” the Master hissed into her ear. “Of course I’m afraid of that.”

Another finger slipped in, and it didn’t hurt, she was getting used to this, and even though the Master was clearly incensed, he wasn’t going to hurt her unfairly. 

The Doctor turned her head to kiss his cheek. He pushed himself back up and kissed her back. 

“You don’t need to be,” she said softly. The rest of her sentence caught in her throat as he spread his fingers inside her and a similar, but different burn raced up her nerves. She inhaled sharply, forcing herself to keep her eyes open instead of squeezing them shut from the stimulation. “I wouldn’t let just anyone do this to me.”

“You don't know that,” he answered, finally pushing in the third finger and knocking the breath from her lungs. 

She shut one eye, trying to maintain eye contact, because it would be very embarrassing and quite rude if she got so caught up in the thrill that she couldn’t carry out a simple conversation. But her brain was beginning to fog over, and it was taking a lot to form a sentence. 

But then the Master gripped her hair, tugged her neck exposed, and sunk his teeth back into an existing bruise, and judging by his muffled laugh at her incoherent attempt at an answer, he didn’t mind it.

The renewed bite pierced through the dull pain of a hickey, and she tightened her arms around the Master. That was a familiar feeling. She liked that feeling. His hand was moving faster inside her, his thumb glancing off her clit, and the building tension and shocks of arousal were terrifyingly new, but she was with the Master, who was being _nice_ , and she could just about—

She thought she had said something in response, but it must have gotten lost between her brain and her mouth, for the Master kissed her just before her body had enough and shoved her over the edge of that cliff and everything became blindingly indistinct.

When the Doctor came to, she was aware that her arms had slipped from the Master’s shoulders, and he’d let her go to kneel between her legs, staring down at her with an expression she didn’t have the brain power to parse yet, and there was a warm, slick wetness dripping between her thighs, and everything was aching in the best way. 

Okay, she thought, that was definitely different from before. 

The next thing she thought was that the Master was still clothed from head to toe, while she was completely nude, splayed before him, soaked in sweat and fluids. He was at most slightly disheveled, and that was exactly what he’d _wanted_. 

She closed her eyes and tried to get her chest to stop heaving. Oh please, don’t let this body be one that got emotional after sex. This was not a good time to start tearing up. 

She melted into the mattress and admitted: “I’m scared of losing you too.”

The pillow dipped beside her head, and the Doctor opened her eyes in time to see the Master kiss her softly on the lips, to press their foreheads together again, to express, just faintly, how desperate he’d been for her validation, so fearful of a true rejection. She didn’t mean to laugh, but she did. 

She could see it now, in those big brown eyes; had he really been so worried? Had he forgotten all those years ago when Theta was so scared Koschei would leave him for someone better? How they fought later on because he’d been so insecure about someone else’s crush on Koschei? The Master was clever and charismatic and so brilliant, and she spent a good portion of their lives trying to keep up and to think they’d been the same—

The Doctor wasn’t crying, but her emotions were all over the place. Odd, she hadn’t done that since—

The Master yanked her up, toppling her into his lap, and kissed her so hard their teeth clicked together for a moment. She protested at the feeling of leaking onto the fabric of his trousers, but the Master didn’t seem to care and fixated on biting away at her lips until they buzzed with pain. 

_Thank you,_ the Master said, then, without elaborating, pulled away from the kiss and offered her his hand, stained with a white fluid. “Please?”

The Doctor couldn’t blush harder than she already was. She took his hand by the wrist again and licked around his fingers. Huh. That was different too now. 

The Master was trembling, and when she met his eyes, he looked like he was about to lose his composure and either cry or kiss her again or both. The Doctor kissed his cleaned knuckles, then shuffled off of his lap. She grimaced slightly at the come still leaking from her, and reached for the Master’s belt to free his evident erection. 

The Master grabbed her hands and leaned in to kiss her. They held the kiss, and he started unbuttoning his shirt. The Doctor was about to speak through the kiss, and only then did she realise she’d gone through that entire ordeal without naming him, nor did he ask her to. 

He broke the kiss to unclothe the rest of himself, and the Doctor smiled slightly as the Master revealed more and more of his skin. She’d been right; he was softer and pudgier now with a tummy, even though there was still no doubt he could probably pick her up effortlessly. And vice versa. 

She caught him frowning at her and smiled a bit brighter. 

“I like it! You’ve always been all edges and bone.”

“Physical appearance is supposed to be irrelevant to us.”

“Yes, and you’re always the Master to me, no matter what you look like.”

The Doctor gave a yelp as the Master pushed her down onto her back. 

“Wait, I—” 

“What?” The Master prompted. 

“I’d like to sit in your lap, to start,” she said, pushing herself up and withdrawing her knees beneath her. “No power plays, remember?”

“Yes, yes,” the Master sighed, pulling back so she could shuffle into his arms. “I could be nice _and_ your Master, though.”

“Later, maybe.” The Doctor wrapped an arm around his shoulders, happy to finally feel skin.

She reached down for the Master’s cock and gave the hard length a few gentle strokes before the Master could answer with something equally egotistical. He strained against her fingers, the tip slick with precum and the entire shaft pulsing with heat. The Master cut himself off with a pleased gasp, and she grinned, lifting her hips to guide him towards her. 

It was different, not necessitating lubricant this time, and the head brushing against her folds made her shiver from the feedback. She wondered how in existence’s name Missy had managed to still be so commanding and in control when she had fucked herself on the Doctor before because she felt like her brain was going to disconnect from her body’s nervous receptors. 

“I had a lot of time to myself,” the Master repeated coyly, though his voice had gone slightly raspy with lust. “And I couldn’t let you get the better of me.”

The Doctor resisted the urge to roll her eyes, seizing her lower lip between her teeth (he really had done a number on her, the tormented skin was buzzing in a dull, reassuring pain) and lowering herself onto the Master’s cock. Her swollen lip protested as she bit down harder, and she let out a shaky breath at the novel feeling of the Master’s cock pressed into her in a different way than ever before. 

She was still stretched out and slick from the Master’s earlier ministrations, but the thick length felt different than a few fingers. The head pushed in deeper, and she could feel sweat breaking out over her body again. Her legs began to shake as she lifted her hips slightly, not to retreat, but to withdraw and sink back down, slowly, onto the Master. It hurt, and it was a familiar hurt even if it wasn’t the same, and the Doctor would be lying if she said she didn’t still like it. 

The Master’s free hand — the other propping up behind him to keep them from falling over — rested on the small of her back, tracing circles in Gallifreyan she couldn’t focus enough to decipher but was probably praise, and pulling her forwards for a kiss. He thrust shallowly into her, gradually working his cock deeper inside, and his entire body shook with clear restraint. 

“Master,” she murmured against his lips, and pulled back to look at him. 

There it was, not only that look in his eyes, but that thrumming in her hearts, and the melting of her mental barriers. There was a warmth enveloping her mind, the Master’s mind wrapping around hers, all-encompassing and stifling and possessive as always.

They breathed together, lungs and muscles working hard to keep them both upright and in control, until her thighs pressed against his and they fit, entirely and wonderfully, together. The Doctor’s legs gave out, and she sunk, gratefully, into his hold. 

There were so many more nerve endings, all live with information: how it felt to have the Master inside of her, the curve of his cock pressed deep against her soft walls, the feeling of being full of something, warm and throbbing, in a different way to any previous experience, and the barest sensation, the slightest thrill of fear, that it was something new and different she didn’t quite know everything about yet, and the Master could just manage to surprise her again. 

She gave herself just a moment to savour the feeling, then she gripped his shoulders, and he tangled both hands in her hair, and they started to move again. 

It was very different, feeling the rush of arousal and stimulation as something solely internal. There had always been a positive reception when the Master fucked her before, but no longer having a cock of her own to tend to threw a wrench into what she was to do with her hands besides digging her fingernails into the Master’s back and gasping into his shoulder like they were adolescents experimenting with power dynamics for the first time and Koschei didn’t want Theta touching himself. 

“Isn’t that—hah—a lovely memory?” The Master chuckled deep in his chest, his hand creeping up to the back of her neck and seizing a fistful of hair. 

“No—power—plays,” she forced out. 

Her breasts were visibly bouncing as she met the Master’s thrusts, and in the back of her mind the Doctor found it a little ridiculous looking, but then her back hit the bed again and the Master swung her legs around his waist, before leaning down to close his mouth over a nipple. 

It was already disorienting, the way he thrust into her; every sudden movement, a spasm of alerted nerves tried to reach her brain and gave her nothing but the shock of pleasure and a very welcome pain from the force. Now he was just messing with her, overloading her body with so many new sensations her mind was struggling to keep up. She was definitely going to come before him. 

_I hope you didn’t find it ridiculous when I had breasts,_ the Master muttered, and she had just enough tact left to note a slight hurt in his thoughts.

“You were the one telling me what to do and—ah— _ah—Master!_ ” 

Her brain blanked slightly when the Master reached down to find her clit and pinch it between his fingers, still thrusting hard and powerful into her cunt. The Doctor’s eyes squeezed shut, and she let go of his shoulders to press a hand against her mouth, attempting to stifle herself. All these bodies and the Master could always figure out how to make them sound like an utterly needy fool. 

The Master lifted his mouth off of her breast and pinned her hand to the bed, a dark, familiar rage in his eyes that, had the Doctor had more brain power dedicated to not being excessively aroused, she would find overly dramatic. However, as she was in the middle of getting fucked to within an inch of regeneration, she instead found it delightful when the Master’s other hand left the dip between her legs, threw her knee over his shoulder, and drove himself in so deeply her vision went black for a second and—

She came first, and although the fact that the Master could have also come inside of her was a physical possibility, she was aware she’d orgasmed first because by the time she’d realised it, the Master’s hands were digging prints into her hips, fucking into her limp body with such vigour she could feel every impact of his hips against hers, until he pushed deep enough that their bodies moulded into each other, and a rush of slick warmth filled the spaces left between them. 

It was quite different this time, she would have observed, if her brain could retain that information. There was the very perceptible feeling of the Master’s come (and possibly hers) overflowing between them and staining the insides of her thighs, dripping out of her and starting to trail down the curves of her skin. The Master pulled himself from her, eyeing her body beneath him and running his fingertips against her thighs. It felt different to when the Master would leave the Doctor with white staining his stomach from his spent cock, and the Master’s own leaking obscenely from his arse. Even though this was better contained and less glaringly lewd as having semen all over her skin, there remained the impression the Master always adored. 

He stared at her, admiring his handiwork even though he had to be aching and exhausted. They always liked seeing the results of sex, and she wondered if they liked it more than the act itself. It was all about breaking the Doctor down, after all, seeing them vulnerable and spent and pleasantly exhausted and most importantly—claimed. 

The egotistical bastard. 

_It’s not about my being better than you, my love. It’s so I know, you’re only with me._

His thoughts rang clear through her head. She didn’t have the strength to start patching her shields back up. The Doctor wasn’t going to start crying, like some of her previous bodies had been wont to after sex, but it would be _nice_ if he could get off his high horse of possessing her and maybe just freaking cuddle for a second. 

The Master collapsed beside her and kissed her, softly and adoringly and desperately. They were both shaking from exertion, and his mind brushed up against hers, overlapping without clear shielding. It stung a little, everything was a bit too sensitive between them, every touch, physical and mental, clashing like flint and leaving sparks that didn’t quite hurt but were still so beautiful to watch fly. 

“See,” she murmured, her voice slightly hoarse, grasping his hands between hers. “No need for power plays.”

The Master kissed her again, slipping a hand out from between hers so he could grasp one of hers tightly as well. He radiated relief and want, but when he pulled away, he had a too-satisfied smile on his face. 

“You liked it at the end,” he teased. 

“I’m already backtracking on that,” the Doctor replied with a huff. “I think you sprained one of my thigh muscles.”

“I think you’d be limping either way, my dear.”

He was smirking now and she wondered if she had the strength to push him off the bed. 

“I doubt it,” he answered, pulling her in so her head rested by his chest and their legs tangled together. He traced the edge of her shoulder and she could practically hear him smile at the very prominent markings on her skin. “You’re gonna need a new outfit.”

“Go away,” she grumbled, but buried her face into his neck. The Master never changed in his possessiveness, but neither did the Doctor in her satisfaction of it. “I’ll put a perception filter over it.”

“Ooh,” that was never a good sound to hear from the Master. He ran a finger over a bite and traced circles of ownership around them. “Can I put a collar on you then? If you already have a perception filter—”

“No,” she said flatly, wrapping an arm around his back so she could press her face further into his chest. _Not unless…_

“Unless?” The Master was chuckling now, brushing his fingers against her neck and making her shiver in his hold. 

_Later_ , she said quickly, but her mind was very much unguarded and he could catch the half-detailed vision of leather tight around her neck, her body weight on her knees, a gentle hand on her cheek and—

“And here I thought you didn’t want any power plays,” the Master said, his voice lightly mocking, but his fingers traced the back of her neck with a more deliberate pressure. Their minds resonated and she could hear his imagined self murmuring words of praise. She sighed contentedly and relaxed into his hold.

_Only if you’re nice to me._

“Only if you’ll stay with me.”

_You don’t need to force me. I know you’re worried._

“Of course I am,” he repeated.

 _But I’m choosing to stay,_ she said, pulling back to shuffle her head back on to the pillow and meet his eyes. “Isn’t that better than threatening me to stay?”

Big brown eyes wavered in anxiety and the Doctor couldn’t help but smile. The Master pushed her onto her back and rested his head on her chest instead. She ran her fingers through his hair. 

“You have me,” she said. “I’ll stay if you will too.”

The Master face was warm against her skin and she could feel embarrassment waft over before he propped himself up on his elbows, leaned down to touch their foreheads together, and murmured:

“Stay with me. My Doctor.”

She smiled, tangling her hands into the back of his hair, and answered:

“Yes, Master.”

**Author's Note:**

> listen... i'm ace as fuck and don't know what i'm doing pls don't shame me i swear i tried.
> 
>  **03/01/2021 edit:** Marked as anonymous so it won't show up on my main account [V_fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_fics/works). No reason I just find my writing for this a little cringe.


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